These hotels currently offer a capacity of more than 16,500 rooms for visitors to the Gulf’s only island nation.

Commenting on the developments in Bahrain’s tourism and hospitality sectors, Khalid Al Rumaihi, chief executive at EDB, said: “These future investments in the hospitality sector will bring several new international hotel chains to the kingdom and raise the profile of existing ones.

“They are expected to increase hotel capacity in the country by around 4,000 hotel rooms, by 2020, as well as fill the gaps in the market, especially in the mid-market and luxury sector”.

He added: “These new developments will both help to meet rising demand and attract new visitors to the Kingdom. Bahrain showed strong growth in tourist numbers in 2016, witnessing a six per cent increase in the number of tourist arrivals, receiving 12.2 million.”